What is Magento Business Intelligence? Why Should You Have it?

In a previous blog, we briefly mentioned Magento’s Business Intelligence platform and outlined some steps you as a merchant can take to cultivate a data-driven culture. Of course, to take advantage of Magento’s or any business analytics platform, one must first understand how that platform works and how it can be used to make smarter decisions.

So, what is Magento BI and how is it different from other analytics platforms? Magento BI is Magento’s cloud-based platform tuned for ecommerce business intelligence, somewhat like other analytics platforms. However, where Magento BI separates itself from other platforms is the fact that it is seamlessly integrated into Magento stores which allows it to pull data directly from your customer database (of any kind) to leverage their purchase history and behavioral data which allows for more detailed customer segmentation. Other analytics platforms do not pull from your customer database thus you would have to manually import that data (if possible) or be forced to make predictive analysis without said customer data which really limits decision-making. In other words, Magento BI’s competitive advantage is the ability to leverage data directly from your CRM database.

Now let’s discuss how Magento’s BI platform works. We should first note that Magento’s BI platform is not a standalone platform, it’s simply a very intricate data consolidation tool. The platform uses pre-built connectors to link third-party data sources to your store making data transfer seamless and pain-free. Some common third-party data sources that can be connected are QuickBooks, Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, and Salesforce. Merchants also can pull from other ecommerce platforms such as Shopify if need be. Data from third-party sources are then kept in a ‘data warehouse’ and specific data tables are built from that warehouse.

Here are a few examples of unique features of Magento’s BI platform:

• Merchants can utilize one dashboard or utilize a dashboard from each data source.

• Merchants can also grant different permissions to each dashboard limiting who can access what helping to narrow focus within the organization.

Here are some of the unique reports you can pull utilizing both your customer’s transaction data and your third-party data sources:

• Predictive Buy Date: Use customer purchase history to predict when their next purchase will be.

• Predictive Customer Value: Max ad spend by knowing which customers to retarget based on predictive data and order history across your channel sources.

Some other capabilities of Magento’s Business Intelligence not mentioned include: the measurement of marketing campaign ROI, the ability to optimize merchandising and inventory optimization by way of integration with the order management solution.

These tools and more are designed to help merchants sell smarter. If you’d like to learn more about Magento Business Intelligence and what it could do for your business, reach out to one of our eCommerce Consultants today!